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Refugees Can Help Europe Grow

The flow of asylum seekers into Europe could be an immediate driver of economic growth, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday, ANSA reported. “Rapid job market integration of immigrants has significant economic, budgetary and social benefits,” the IMF said in a report on refugees in Europe. “The effect of the new workers on existing ones is limited,” the report said, citing studies showing that migration flows do not affect the unemployment rate or the average wages of native workers. Growth will be stronger in refugee and migrant destination countries, said the IMF. Overall, it forecast 0.1% European GDP growth in 2017 due to the new arrivals. Short-term costs for European host countries will be an estimated 0.05% of GDP in 2015 and 0.1% in the current year. For Italy, those costs were 0.17% of GDP in 2014, 0.2% in 2015 and an estimated 0.24% in 2016. The ongoing refugee and migrant crisis points to the inadequacy of the European Union’s asylum policy, the IMF said.